- Title
- Comb with the Hindu God Vishnu
- Date Made
- circa 1725
- Medium
- Ivory
- Dimensions
- 3 5/8 x 3 x 3/4 in. (9.21 x 7.62 x 1.91 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.80.232.1
- Collecting Area
- South and Southeast Asian Art
- Curatorial Notes
This small comb with fine teeth is embellished with a handle depicting the Hindu god Vishnu seated in the meditation posture (padma asana) on a lotus base in front of an aureole (prabhavali). He wears his tall mitre crown (kirita mukuta), the Brahmanical sacred thread (yajnopavita) over his left shoulder, and a long forest garland (vana mala). Vishnu has four arms bearing in his hands his standard attributes of a conch (lower right), discus (upper right), mace (upper left), and a lotus bud (lower left). The back of the comb has an oval recess with two lug holes used originally for attaching an inset glass or metal mirror.
See also M.83.218.1 (the comb’s teeth have been removed, probably due to breakage). Comparable Nepalese ivory combs are in The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore (71.1226) and The Daalder Collection, Adelaide. A metal mirror with an ivory handle with similar imagery and carving style is in National Museum, Kathmandu. It is dated 1773 and was commissioned by the barber Sikurabhana in honor of Ratneshvara (Lord of Jewels), an epithet of Shiva.
- Selected Bibliography
- Pal, Pratapaditya. Elephants and Ivories in South Asia. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1981.
- Pal, Pratapaditya. Art of Nepal. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; University of California Press, 1985.
